


Under Neon Lights

by Thebipear



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Developing Relationship, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Self-Indulgent, i honestly don't know how to tag this, this is mostly a narrative experiment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:15:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25812655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thebipear/pseuds/Thebipear
Summary: Piers started descending the stage, posture and movements completely different than one minute ago. Haloed by those neon hues, he became a menacing shadow, almost like a venomous creature preparing to lunge at its prey.Raihan decided in that moment that he really liked Spikemuth’s lights.
Relationships: Kibana | Raihan/Nezu | Piers
Comments: 17
Kudos: 97





	Under Neon Lights

**Author's Note:**

> So I was happily working on another fic when an idea started haunting me, constantly on the back of my mind until I gave in and wrote this... thing. I honestly don't know how to describe this, I just experimented with a very visual narrative and let myself be as corny and self-indulgent as I can be
> 
> Also, this is the first time I post anything and the first time I write something remotely resembling smut (and to top it off English is not my first language), so bear with me please 人´∀｀)
> 
> Anyways, you can find me most of the time on [tumblr](https://thebipear.tumblr.com), and I also recently made a [twitter](https://twitter.com/thebipear) account (which I still don't really know how to use oops). Don't hesitate to hit me up wherever and talk/scream at me, I'd love to make friends!
> 
> Have a good day and stay safe! ٩(^ᴗ^)۶

Spikemuth hadn’t changed one bit since the last ―and only― time Raihan had set foot into the town, roughly a decade ago. It still had that air about it, that feeling of abandonment mixed with a certain menacing aura that put him on his guard. The domes that covered it all, preventing the sunlight from entering, still gave the town the impression of being an unconventional snow globe abandoned in the back of a shelf, or forgotten in the furthermost corner of an attic.

But Spikemuth’s peculiarity resided in its bright, neon lights dotting the streets. Instead of the clear light of street lamps, or the sharp flashes of vehicles crossing the streets like arrows, or the plain old sunlight; the town was enveloped in flaring, almost aggressive beams of various colours in the form of signs and bulbs hanging from the walls. There were some street lamps scattered here and there too, outdated and half burnt out. In a strange way, it was as if the town was desperate to have some light of its own, since it was estranged from the sky and all its glows.

However, as he walked down the main street, Raihan wondered if that profusion of lights didn’t serve a completely different purpose. After all, they casted sharp and ever-changing shadows on everything they touched, including himself. The more light, the more darkness and all that.

A growing beam of colour interrupted his thoughts, indicating that he’d reached his destination. Raihan had to shield his eyes for a few seconds, a gesture that momentarily flodded his mind with fragmented memories. He remembered the cracked floor, the faded paint, the echo of the battle traveling upwards through the buildings, huddled as if they were conspiring against him.

Raihan made a beeline for the stage. The stadium ―if it could even be named that― was almost empty save for a couple of gym trainers hustling and bustling around and a very familiar silhouette standing backlit by spotlights, a shadow against blue and reddish hues.

“You’re awfully early,” Piers greeted, not even looking at him.

“Yep.” Raihan put his hands behind his head, a relaxed attitude that didn’t quite match his real mood. “Maybe I got a bit overexcited about this. I mean, finally battling you in an unofficial match, without dynamax? It’s a shame that almost no one’s going to see it.”

Piers rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say,” he fiddled with his mic stand, loking hesitant for a moment, and then finally made eye contact. “Just don’t get used to it. I’m humorin’ you once ‘cause you were insistent, don’t think you’re gonna get anything out of this.”

Raihan was completely taken aback.

“What? You think I have ulterior motives?” He didn’t even understand what those could be. “I want a match because I’m genuinely interested in your skills! You got me up against a wall in the last Champion Cup, even with a disadvantage! I’m here because I want to battle you in equal ground.” Raihan averted his eyes for an instant, deciding in less than a heartbeat that he may as well be bold. “I want to see what you’ve got, for real.”

That won him an arched brow and a glint in Piers’ eyes that he didn’t know the meaning of. Also, a silence that streched long enought to feel a bit awkward.

“Alright, big boy,” the dark type trainer finally conceded. “Let’s see how you manage without that big ass skyscraper of yours.”

Piers started descending the stage, posture and movements completely different than one minute ago. Haloed by those neon hues, he became a menacing shadow, almost like a venomous creature preparing to lunge at its prey.

Raihan decided in that moment that he really liked Spikemuth’s lights.

* * *

“Don’t.”

That single word cut the silence in two.

“I didn’t do anything!” Raihan protested, his speech the tiniest bit slurred.

“You were thinkin’ of snappin’ a picture, weren’t’cha?”

Raihan slumped on the bench, feeling his cheeks heat up a little.

“The lightning’s very nice,” he muttered.

A snort.

“Sure. This busted street lamp is so fuckin’ flatterin’.”

“But it is!”

It really was. It’s true that a source of light coming from above usually creates weird shadows on people’s features, but… Raihan wanted to capture that instant in some way. Apart form the aforementioned street lamp, there was also a red and yellow light coming from a neon sign just in front of them, its glow complementing the other perfectly. That gave Piers an almost surreal appearance, as if the edges of his figure were fading. He looked so good hunched on that bench, knees up to his chest, makeup a bit smudged and hair disheveled from all the dancing. Piers was the opposite of a social butterfly, but it turns out that he showed a surprising amount of energy in the dancefloor. Bouncing around next to each other, letting themselves be carried by the waves of the crowd under flashing green and pink floodlights, had beed exhilarating. So much so that when they decided they’d had enough for the night, Raihan had asked him to wait with him for his flying taxi. And there they were, sitting on a bench near one of the shutters that led out of the city, Raihan’s rotomphone out and alert.

Also, in a moment of unprecedented bravery ―or inhibition caused by a mix of leftover euphoria and the alcohol in his veins― Raihan had offered his hoodie to Piers when he saw him shiver, no doubt from the stark contrast of temperature between the inside of the club and the outside, along with the cooling layer of sweat that still clinged to all his visible skin. And in a surprising turn of events, Piers had accepted it.

Raihan didn’t need his hoodie anyways, still warm from dancing and jumping and screaming around. Maybe the alcohol had something to do too. And Piers’ appearance. Angling himself better on the bench, Raihan observed the other attentively. He couldn’t take a picture, so he made his best to memorize each and every detail, to imprint that instant in his mind.

“You’re gonna go blind, starin’ so hard.”

“I wouldn’t mind if this is the last thing I see.”

Piers turned to him, expression inscrutable, just as Raihan realized what he’d said. His filter had failed him. Still, he sustained the singer’s gaze, that gaze that pinned him down on the spot as it probed at his face, searching for something. Raihan was sure he was blushing, but he couldn’t do anything to hide it. He hoped Piers assumed it was due to the alcohol, or to the red light of the sign.

Finally, Piers freed him from his stare, turning his head the other way with a non-committal hum. And maybe it was the red light from the sign, or the cold, or the alcohol, or Raihan’s hopes making him see things, but Piers’ cheeks seemed a little flushed too.

* * *

Raihan thought he’d be ready to see Piers on the stage. He thought that after witnessing those surges of energy the singer showed during battles, or when they went clubbing together, he’d be able to also witness him giving his all during one of his concerts without his heart jumping out of his chest. Sure, there’d be a completely different atmosphere to it all, and Piers’ voice booming through the speakers, but he’d surely be able to handle it.

He was wrong.

Piers was… intense, for lack of a better word. Bolder than he’d ever seen him before, open and expressive in a way that was both powerful and vulnerable. All his person turned into a mere vessel for his voice, coursing through him so violently that he seemed unable to stay still for more than an instant. He exuded raw passion, trapping the audience in his music, his lyrics creating a whole new universe inside Spikemuth’s cramped and run down gym.

Raihan was standing in a corner near the stage, hidden from the rest of the crowd. He didn’t want to bring attention to himself, although he wondered how anyone there could ever look at anything but Piers. The singer was, once again, a dark silhouette against flaring lights. This time, though, those lights were brighter and bolder. Just like him. The colour changes brought different dimensions to his features that were accentuated by smudged makeup, to his hair that flowed and whipped wildly with each of his movements. He changed and changed and changed, like an immaterial being that existed only to sing, to enrapture any soul that dared listen. He was a siren, the audience his victims, the lights of the stage those of the bioluminescent creatures at the bottom of the sea.

And then, after a line that Raihan was too entranced to listen to properly, he thought he saw Piers throw a glance at him. The glint in his eyes, also ever-changing, turned fierce like it did whenever he deemed a challenge worthy to accept. This time it had also a mischievous air, a suggestive undertone. Almost like a promise, as tempting as dangerous.

Stiff in various ways, Raihan chose to interpret that glance as part of the performance. He had a hunch his heart wouldn’t be able to survive the whole concert otherwise.

* * *

He was awoken by something undefined. Maybe it was the stiffness of his bad posture, or a noise he’d already forgotten, or the chill on his naked arms. Or, as he remembered when he saw the striped pattern of lights on the floor, maybe it was because he wasn’t sleeping on his own bed and so his senses were unconsciously more alert, still unused to this particular place.

He sat up, limbs protesting from being cramped in a couch too small for him. The softest of sighs, barely louder than his own breath, caught his attention. The living room window was open, blinds almost all the way down. A changing glow, from blue to purple and blue again, slipped through the gaps. And against that light, Raihan saw a very familiar form half-sitting on the window frame, a tendril of smoke escaping from it and rising, vanishing into the coloured night.

He got up from the couch and padded towards Piers, careful not to make too much noise.

“Sorry, woke you up,” a whisper cut the silence.

Raihan shook his head, then saw that Piers had his eyes turned toward the street.

“Nah, s’okay,” he whispered back. “I would’ve waken up from a pulled muscle or something anyways.”

“Told you to take the bed.”

“It’s your bed.”

Raihan leaned against the window frame at the same time that Piers sighed, their earlier, firendly argument surely in his mind.

A beat of silence, a shared glance. Those sharp shadows on the singer’s features that Raihan had already learned to love.

“Why are you up?” He asked. “Don’t tell me you haven’t gone to sleep because you didn’t want to take your own bed.”

Another beat of silence. Raihan opened his mouth to protest but Piers was quicker, words barely more than a sigh, gaze lost somewhere out the window.

“One of those nights, that’s all.”

Raihan sat on the floor, feeling cold all of a sudden. He debated himself internally, not really knowing what to do. Sometimes Piers’ mind would get lost somewhere far away and he didn’t know how to bring him back. When he turned to look at him, his gaze was still distant, his body only moving mechanically to bring the cigarette to his mouth, breath in, and let out smoke.

“Well…” He tried, finally opting for the easy, flirty option. “We could’ve gone with Marnie’s suggestion.”

A chuckle, accompanied by a puff of smoke that turned purple on his way out.

“Bed’s taken anyways, unless you want to fight Obstagoon and the others for it. Plus, Marnie is here tonight.” His voice still sounded a bit distant.

“I tried,” Raihan sighed dramatically, still trying to lighten up the mood.

With a change from purple to blue, an idea crossed his mind. He got up and gathered all the cushions and the blanket from the couch, throwing them to the floor and trying to make something even vaguely comfortable with them under Piers’ curious stare. Finally, Raihan sat inside the tiny, improvised whatever-that-was and beckoned the other to join him.

“That’s so much worse than sharing a bed.”

“You got up, though. Come on, I’ll listen and cuddle you, and then maybe we’ll fall asleep and tomorrow we won’t regret this.”

Piers rolled his eyes, but put out his cigarette and joined Raihan on the puny pile of cushions. It took a lot of fumbling and repositioning, and the final configuration was far from comfortable, but Piers was able to lean his forehead on Raihan’s chest at the same time that Raihan ran a hand through is hair. Piers’ voice, hesitant at first, filled the silence while Raihan admired the hues those lights gifted the locks between his fingers, and the contrast they made against his own skin. Finally, after a time that stretched to the point of eternity, when Piers’ thoughts were quiet enough to let him rest for the night, Raihan allowed himself to softly kiss the crown of the other’s head. Thin arms hugged him tighter as a response.

* * *

The world outside Piers’ cramped bedroom didn’t exist anymore. Hell, Raihan felt like he could forget his whole damned existence, so immersed in that moment that logical thoughts were having difficulties swimming to the forefront of his mind.

Piers was riding him, flooded by those neon lights that were visible from almost any room of the flat. Blue and purple in infinite succession, punctuating their movements, transforming the four walls around them into a tiny world of their own, detached from time and space and any other physical conventions.

Blue. Piers lifted himself up in a slow, almost lazy move, Raihan’s cock almost slipping out of him. The shadows of his sharp angles were impossibly dark; his eyes almost inhuman, their glint piercing Raihan’s very soul.

Purple. Piers went down again, lips parted to let out a silent gasp. His face was dyed pink by a blush, his neck and chest dappled by lovebites blooming plum under that light.

Raihan sat up, searching, pleading for Piers’ lips on his. A moan escaped from the bottom of his lungs, swallowed by his lover’s mouth. A hand tangled in long locks of hair, not quite pulling. Piers leaned on Raihan, letting his weight gently fall on him, abandoning himself to the moment. The lights continued their dance behind Raihan’s closed eyelids.

Then came a muttered question, a reassurance, the soft sound of a kiss on a forehead, so tender that Raihan could feel his heart clench in the best possible way. Some tossing and turning, movements fragmented by the ever-changing flashes. Once settled again, Raihan had a new angle to observe his lover, and he may or may not stayed still for a second too long, just staring at him. It was okay, though, because the ogling was mutual.

Blue and purple, and blue, and purple. A hand descending from face to neck, to chest, to stomach. Purple brought a question, blue an answer. Raihan leaned forward, burying his face in the juncture between Piers’ neck and shoulder, finding a spot that had yet to be marked. Long, thin fingers laced between his dreads at the same time that equally long and thin legs enveloped his waist, gently nailing him into place.

The silence was truly broken when Raihan started thrusting earnestly, two moans harmonizing with the sound of skin slapping on skin. They were completely taken by one another, lost in that intimacy that was both sheltered and laid bare by the neon lights.

After a time that felt both like an instant and an eternity, Raihan fell out of rhythm as a wave of overwhelming pleasure washed over him, sending him over the edge and making him spill inside Piers. His climax was cradled by a caress and a few encouraging words uttered by the singer’s voice, coarse and sweet. And it sounded even sweeter when Raihan started moving his hand once again in that irregular cadence he knew Piers always lost himself to.

In that beat of darkness just between a change of colour Piers let out a last, breathless moan, and came on Raihan’s hand, who drank his expression in as if it was the last thing he’d ever see. The two came down from their high little by little, gently entering their after-sex routine: trading more loving words and caresses, cleaning up, and snuggling.

Before his eyelids closed for the night, heavy with content under Piers’ embrace, Raihan committed to memory the reflection of the lights on his lover’s skin, glowing because of the sweat clinging to it. His last coherent thoughts before succumbing to sleep were about how much he loved seeing Piers under the lights of his hometown.


End file.
